Since I was in Walmart about 1 month after I last checked prices, I thought I would look back at the same items from before and see what, if anything, had changed. Eight out of the 12 items had not changed prices in the past month. But the other 4 had all increased.
Ground beef up to $5.34 from $4.94 a month ago.
A dozen large eggs up to $5.97 from $4.53 a month ago. A dozen eggs is now more expensive than a pound of ground beef! The eggs prices are still high due largely to bird flu, but I read that the Department of Agriculture is looking into importing eggs to try to reduce prices. Corporate greed is likely having some impact here too, though. According to the New York Times:
But there is at least one winner in the current shortage, which began in 2022: the country’s biggest egg producer.
Cal-Maine Foods, which controls about a fifth of the egg market and sells to Walmart and other large retailers, reported that its revenues jumped to $954 million in the quarter that ended in late November from $523 million from the prior year — an increase of 82 percent. The company said those numbers “were primarily driven by an increase in the net average selling price of shell eggs as well as an increase in total dozens sold.”
The company’s net income surged more than 500 percent, to $218 million, from year-earlier levels, thanks to higher prices, the lower cost of feed and acquisitions of other operators. And prices have shot up even more since the company released its quarterly financial statement. [...]
But as consumers confront empty shelves in their grocery stores and prices soar in some places to over $10 for a dozen eggs, the concentration of egg production in fewer hands is raising concerns, stoked by previous findings. Two years ago, the largest producers were found liable for inflating prices in the 2000s. Now, some lawmakers are calling for federal regulators to investigate the industry.
A gallon of store brand whole milk is up to $4.67 from $4.02 a month ago.
A gallon of diesel fuel is up to $3.52 from $3.34 a month ago.
The interesting thing to me is that the items that have increased don't seem to be things that are imported, but things that I assume are at least mostly products of the USA.
